Why’s that, you ask? I’m pretty good at what I do. That and I know what others like me want to buy, consume, believe and then invest in, talk about and value in their lives.

Who am I, really, Boss? I’m just a dude with a portfolio career who wants to make a difference in the world, do well, make a good name for you and for myself, get paid, get more responsibility, accomplish something, then get out. I’ve got big plans, you see. That doesn’t make me selfish – just pragmatic.

What do I want from you and from your company? I’ll tell you very frankly:

1) Radical Transparency.

Next time there is an All-Hands meeting, tell me what the different teams are doing. Why are they doing it, with what success or failure? Tell me the company financials, product details and the strategy. I’ll handle it just fine – big boy.

I want to hear about our marketing, our hiring and how the market looks. I want to know ahead of time what bonuses will look like and what I need to do to get a raise, a better title, people I will manage, and so on.

When you show me (not just tell me) we’re in glass house, I’ll think twice before throwing a stone.

2) Purpose and Mission.

Why are we here? Why are we doing what we’re doing, in the way we are? What are we working for all day and night? Why does my role here matter? What is the bigger purpose here? Tell me how we are saving lives or people’s time or money – better if all three.

If something’s off, I want to know ASAP to course-correct. Less formal and more regular is better.

There is nothing more that I appreciate than when you take your time (even a couple minutes twice a week) to motivate me and help me improve.

4) Drop the micro-managing.

Treat me like the capable professional you hired and just let me do my job.

5) Be flexible with using more of my skills.

I’m not just a one-hit Excel wonder or copywriting robot. Use me or lose me.

Toss me a bone – let me work on a side project with another team or another project where I know I can be instantly helpful.

It helps keep me motivated and feeling useful to the company – and will reliably improve your bottom line and make it more likely I’ll stick around a while.

6) Step up to the plate as a mentor or find me someone here who can help guide me in my career path.

This means meaningful one-one-one time outside of work – not just passing words exchanged at a team-building exercise or group lunch.

7) Drop the unlimited vacation policy.

In practice, this just means nobody ever takes off. Set an example by actually taking off time and encouraging us to do the same. It makes burnout less likely and helps us refocus, refresh and come back ready to take on new challenges.

8) Flat hierarchy or not, drop the corporate politics and two-faced appeals to culture and values.

Lead by example with radical transparency (#1) and by treating people like adults (#22) and with consistent decency (#23).

9) Make decisions quicklyand transparently.

Make everyone aware of how (and why) we’re moving forward. That’s how you get my buy-in, no matter if we agree.

10) Mix up the demographics.

We need the gray hair and the tattoos, young grads and old fogies (seen The Intern?), women and men, people from different walks of life and backgrounds and industries, and everyone in between.

Don’t let it get stale and boring with everyone looking and sounding the same. Everyone (the company first) benefits from shared perspective and wisdom from all kinds of different people in the same space, working on the same problems.

11) Give me time and resources for meaningful professional development.

Sponsor me for a General Assembly course, online course or industry conference. I will forever be grateful for the exposure and experience. This is a big one.

12) Give me 10-20% of my work time for side projects.

Don’t just pay lip service to what Google does (or used to do well). Use this as a way to tap my creativity and I’ll find you new revenue streams, better, cheaper, faster ways to do things, build new products, etc.

Create an internal forum to gather and generate useful ideas from employees to help the company.

Let me pitch you or whomever in management on my ideas and how I’d implement them. If you approve, let me run with them in balance with my existing tasks.

13) Let me move around internally and outside of the company.

If I like what I learned from you, I’ll work with you again in the future on the same or a new venture.

Always be helpful to me in my career whether here or elsewhere and I’ll always return the favor. No need to burn bridges just because I feel I should move on when I decide to.

Let me choose them myself, first of all. Offer benefits that fit my lifestyle and family situation. Show me that the company actually cares about my health and wellbeing, not just my productivity and its own bottom line.

Help me stay healthy by incentivizing earnings through walking 10,000 steps a day, not just with a cheaper gym membership. Start a pedometer competition with real rewards. Give me cash or good gift cards as inducement (Amazon, iTunes, etc.). The impact will be tremendous and long-lasting – both for me and you.

16) Don’t nickel-and-dime me on professional development, travel and other things important for my job and overall performance.

17) Stop offering gimmicks (foosball table and endless snacks).

We never have time to play foosball and just get fat from eating all day.

18) Judge me on performance, not the hours I’m physically present in the office.

A week-long, 8-hour-a-day+ face time requirement in the office breeds hypocrisy and contempt, not to mention poor quality of work, absenteeism and other evils. As long as I get the work done at a high level and remain motivated, much of the work I do can be done from almost anywhere.

19) Be flexible with letting me work remotely.

I often do my best work at odd times. I likely a have a kid, a wife, side projects, passions, volunteer activities. Sometimes it's best if I don't waste the time commuting in.

20) Be consistently the same inside and out.

Don’t be two-faced to me. I’ll see right through it.

Don’t hire two-faced people who’ll ruin your culture and drive the good people away. That’s the number one ingredient that makes or breaks a company’s success.

21) Include me and other team members in candidate interviews.

This ensures that the whole group buys in before you hire someone that doesn’t fit.

If I’m on the team, my opinion matters, so give me a voice on big decisions and hear me out. Don’t just inform me of new team members the day they start or big changes after the fact. This is a BIG red flag.

22) Treat me like an adult – with dignity, respect and by giving me real responsibility and runway to accomplish my goals.

Also, please respect my need for a life outside of work. Heard of “diminishing returns”? That is what happens when people work too many hours and start burning out.

Give me an opportunity to do my best work with other smart and highly motivated folks on an important problem here that has a real and positive impact on many people.

23) No need to be my best friend, but be consistently decent to me and everyone else around.

Start a virtuous cycle of decency and you'll reap the benefits many times over.

24) Encourage everyone to recognize each other for a job well done.

Make them write it down for review time and factor it into compensation and bonuses. Motivation will go through the roof.

25) Take hiring and HR very seriously.

Hire HR (and all other) people only when they “get it” and buy completely into the company’s mission, purpose and product.

HR should be crystal clear about what motivates me and other employees, what each of us wants out of working here and how to deliver it in return for my time, motivation and best work. None of us should be treated like a commodity if you want us to stick around.

26) Mix up the floor plan.

Don’t force everyone to work out on the open floor all day with no room to breathe or hear our own thoughts. Leave room for people to work solo, so they can focus better.

Now #KThanksBye.

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It's nearing your year-end review. You're really good at what you do, but when it comes to your negotiation skills, you freeze. You might have even taken one of those negotiation courses back in business or in law school, maybe even college, way back when.
But what's the use? You feel you have no leverage. You're in the company maybe a year or 18 months, or maybe even less. You'd hate to rock the boat too much.

You've always kept your nose clean, done your work and then some. You're not one of those alpha dogs, always obsessed with self-promotion. You feel that good things come to those who do great work, work well with teams, collaborate, not steal the show.

You've fallen prey to hidden scripts - those nasty little parasites that feed on insecurity, uncertainty and fear inside your head. Don't feel too bad - all of us have them, often since our childhood.

Now that you're an adult and savvier about the "real world," it is time to stop the madness. There is too much at stake NOT to negotiate. Plus, it is neither rocket science nor impossible for introverts, the risk-averse, the modest and the shy, plus those without "the guts."

I'd know a thing or two about this paradigm. Before I ever went against the grain of childhood shyness and low self-esteem, I viewed negotiation as the province of the alpha male, the Middle Eastern market, the car dealership, the back-room politician.

In business, these illusions quickly withered. When I transitioned to the finance/operations function for a startup, suddenly it was my role to drive down prices, to negotiate with vendors and the landlord. I started trying to bargain at the market on a trip to Casablanca and then Israel.

I then successfully negotiated with the CEO (a master negotiator himself) to go full-time, instead of contract, with a $15K bump in salary and benefits, plus more responsibility that at my prior job. While there, I managed to negotiate down $45K (23%) from a vendor's original offer for an ERP system and $17K (6%) on rent over 5 years for our new office. This, after being too shy and scared to bargain for an apple at the market just a couple months before.

After a while, it was an actor's game, except with higher stakes. The first and most important rule is simple - if you never ask, the answer's always no!

Over the years, since I was young, the many (brilliant, fearless) women in my life would come to me with their frustrations about bosses, lack of meritocracy and inability to get past fears and insecurities and all the rest, especially with negotiation. The men would simply never go admitting it.

Here are the strategies I've counseled them to take. I have used them myself with great results.

1. Write down your hidden scripts. Make sure to name all of them, spare none. Once you acknowledge having them ("I can't negotiate," "I'm not cut out for it," "I'm simply never good enough," "I do not want to rock the boat," etc.) you start to understand that these are just opinions, hardly facts. Are these scripts carried down from family or friends? Are these based on past episodes that are no longer relevant?

Now, you can start to change these harsh opinions on the subject of yourself. Ask friends what you are good at. Write down the tasks at work that make you feel more fulfilled. Write down the favorite role you play out of all your work responsibilities. Are you always making sure others are thriving? Are you at your best when delegating to others and managing them? The subject matter expert everyone consults? Focus on outlining and hammering your strengths before you lash out at yourself for (perceived and real) faults. This way, you will be better balanced and equipped to eliminate your negative scripts.

Keep one critical point in mind. Your performance at work does not equate to your performance as human being, whether it's good or bad. Being a good human doesn't guarantee being a good worker or team mate. Being a good team mate and worker doesn't make you a good human being. Both take work, but don't mix them. Business is business and your personal life is personal.

2. Write down your work accomplishments throughout the year (and before that, as applicable) in as much specific detail as possible (e.g., saved the company $100K, trained 5 new employees in Excel, saved your manager an hour a day by automating 2 reports, improved client retention by 20%, increased revenue by 15%). Imagine that negotiation with your boss is actually an audition and a chance for you to demonstrate your value. This will be your biggest "leverage" in the negotiation.

Managers and executives see your impact on team and company through the lens of concrete numbers, not how nice a person you are or how much everyone loves having you around. Speak their language and they'll take you more seriously and include you in the club of people who "get it," one of "them." This makes it easier for them to make decisions raising your salary, promoting you and otherwise pushing you up and through to the next level.

3. Know your partner (not "opponent") in negotiation better than you know your bestfriend. Was he or she a frat brother or sorority sister in college? Is your manager married or single? Kids or no kids? From Ohio or New Delhi? Likes his coffee black or with a little milk? Went to the same college as you or in Australia? What motivates him or her - money? family well-being? women? men?fame? customer satisfaction? cheaper/better/faster work? technology? What is the person's culture? What is their negotiating style? How does he or she view women? How do they view you based on the language (both spoken and body language) they use with you? How about your peers? How does your manager relate to you in comparison with the others on the team?

Without appearing to pry, these are things you should already have bothered to learn and understand by asking your manager directly or observing through their interactions with you and others, through social media presence, etc. No human is a complete mystery and most are actually quite boring, conventional and predictable.

The goal here is four-fold:

a. to create a real rapport with your manager based on shared background, interests and goals. This requires demystifying your manager and ingratiating yourself on a real human level with the person without appearing to pry, pander or "suck up." In the end, it's all about making yourself appear and sound (and act) like a partner in your manager's success, not his or her opponent or roadblock.

b. to tell them what they need to hear from you in a way that's cooperative and non-threatening, showing you have incentives aligned with his or hers and that what you're asking is both reasonable and in the best interest of the team, company and manager himself (not just your own selfish interest) and

c. to find the manager's trigger words for success in what you're asking. When you know his or her specific goals, you can then frame what you're asking in a way that shows clearly how giving you what you want will concretely help your manager to achieve what he or she wants.

4. Be clear about what you're asking. Is it higher salary? Higher title? A higher bonus? All three? More responsibility? Chances to prove yourself? Be as specific as possible when communicating. Show evidence (see #8 below) to back up your request.

If the answer is no (never presume it will be! When you actually ask, unexpected doors often open for you.), what will you ask for as a backup? If you can't have more than a set raise, perhaps you want more days off or better perks or better health coverage? If the answer is no, immediately ask what are the specific steps you need to take to earn that higher salary, title, bonus, more responsibility, etc. This shows you're not just asking to ask, but are committed to making it happen, helping the company

5. Proactively take the sting out of the coming review. Review yourself first! Take criticism from your manager in stride. Nobody performs flawlessly. Before the negotiation, you should know (and have written down) your own weaknesses and strengths, things you've done well and things you haven't. Anticipate where the challenge will come and have a ready answer for each point.

Coupled with your highly specific achievements during the year (See #2 above), this will help you parry your manager's words, stay on your feet and continue with your objectives in the negotiation.

Most importantly, remember that (within the realm of the possible - see #8 below), granting your wish for a higher salary or title or bonus or better benefits/perks, etc. is often a very easy decision for the manager. Just asking often opens the door to getting what you need.

6. See the review for what it is - a DIALOGUE, NOT a monologue (like your interview to get in the company). Be ready for any scenario. If you believe the dialogue is not going to go well, then start opening up new windows for opportunity. Contact recruiters, if you have to. Talk to friends in other companies where you may want to work. Even if you come nowhere close to switching companies, you will give yourself psychological breathing room. This will help you parry whatever feedback you receive, whether negative or positive, and continue with your objective in the negotiation.

7. Control the negotiation yourself from the start. Speak first to build confidence and take the initiative. Begin by thanking your manager for sitting down with you to discuss your performance. Restate your commitment to the team and company, your love of working with the team to solve problems and create value. This will already blunt the impact of any negative feedback and will enhance any positive feedback coming your way.

8. Do careful and diligent research on your company's average salaries for your position, the average progression to the next title, average bonus figures (and how much of it is based on personal, team and overall company performance) and any other relevant industry, city and state averages. Use Glassdoor.com, Salary.com, speak to others in the company that you trust to know these things.

How much room is there within the company for the boss's discretion to increase your salary, title, bonus, perks, benefits, etc.? Make sure not to ask for things that that the manager can't give you. Only ask for things that are within the real of the possible. Make it as easy as possible for him or her to say yes to your request(s).

Invoke authority - someone higher up in the same organization, average salary at your title in the industry and at competitors and other specific figures in your negotiation dialogue.

Know your company politics down cold. What is the expected time for a promotion and expected raise? How does your review compare with that of others on the same scale?

9. Start working on your body language ASAP. Perception is reality. When your posture is bad, you don't speak up, you're overly emotional or overshare your personal life with co-workers, don't smile sincerely and don't project confidence, you are sabotaging your own daily performance and how others perceive you. It's a slippery slope, but luckily, it's also reversible.

Practice standing up straight with your shoulders open, stretching your arms up and out, lifting your head up and smiling. Close your eyes and imagine doing something outdoors that you really love and makes you happy - walking in the wilderness, skiing on a mountain, whatever it may be. Imagine doing your favorite activity that you're better at than anybody you know. Is it writing? Running quickly? Drawing? Put yourself there and run through the activity for at least a minute or two.

Create space for yourself to be in control. Breathe in and out slowly and deeply. Invigorate your lungs. Do this right before going into the negotiation - in your closed office or bathroom stall. Always put yourself in the best of frame of mind possible right before you negotiate.

Breathe in and out slowly and deeply for a minute before speaking. This lowers your voice and makes you feel and seem more authoritative.

Prepare yourself to look and feel confident RIGHT before the negotiation by standing up straight and tall with your hands on hips or arms spread open in a position of power (e.g., in your office or restroom stall). This shoots up your endorphin level, making you feel instantly more confident and putting you at ease. Try one of these power poses.

Lastly, practice smiling regularly (and sincerely). Work hard to consistently find the positive in people you have to work with and overlook the negative. Remind yourself regularly of activities and people that make you feel good about yourself. Do these activities and re-connect with these people often.

Appear friendly as much as possible without watering down your position or confidence therein. The two are never mutually exclusive. Find the happy middle ground and practice being friendly, even while maintaining your ground.

Throughout the negotiation, maintain good posture, without dramatic posing.

10. Work on the words you speak. Be clear and concise and remain upbeat and down to business, as much as possible, but never humorless. Nobody likes to have Debbie Downer around. Get the cynical humor, high emotion and gossip out of your system and keep away from others around you that do.

Let others assign you to positive stereotypes (hard worker, "gets it done" every time, nice person, clean nose), not negative ones (gossip, depressive, etc.). Always appear well-balanced and relentlessly positive, above all. Don't give your manager or anyone else the tools with which to write you off, keep you down and under-paid and under-utilized, as well as below your own potential.

Always make sure to finish what you start. Don't let negative feedback knock you off your horse (you've now prepared yourself to hear it - see #5 above). Just keep going and finish your list of objectives in the negotiation. Make sure to get in all your points and finish on a positive note, thanking your manager for the feedback and looking forward to creating more value for him or her and the company.

11. Drop any illusions that negotiation is the same, being a woman rather than a man, regardless of whether negotiating with a man or a woman. Humans stereotype instantly and often have strong biases based on background and experience (hence, the need for careful research - see #3 above). This simple human fact is hardly an automatic impediment, but it does present different ways of getting to where you need to be in the negotiation. You absolutely don't need to obsess about "thinking and acting like a man," although certain elements of effective behavior may seem similar to male behavioral stereotypes.

Be aware of the silent stereotypes and prejudices hovering in the background - and transcend them or use them to your advantage! If your boss sees you as a threat to take his or her place, go out of your way to show your commitment to the team and company and his or her success. If your boss appears to think you're a "feeble and helpless woman," it can actually be a big advantage when you impress him or her on the spot with confidence and negotiation ability with the best.

Women tend to better in negotiations when they are seen (and see themselves) as negotiating for a group of people, not themselves (unlike men, for whom this is completely expected). What group do you represent? Under-paid women in your company and industry? Negotiate for the good of a group, not yourself. This will strengthen your position and decrease push-back. Invoke authority whenever possible - someone higher up in the same organization, average salary for your title in the industry and at competitors.

12. Practice, practice, practice the negotiation and get feedback from people you trust who will be frank and honest with you. First, cultivate the thick skin to take the advice as helping you to progress well beyond where you are now. It's a process and won't happen overnight. Start the process as long before your review as possible.

Beware asking close friends or family for frank and honest feedback. They will often hold back for fear of offending you or making it seem that they look down at you. The best alternative is to find an experienced coach specialized in giving frank feedback and teaching the methodology to overcome your fears and hidden scripts, create good habits of self-perception and outward appearance and to negotiate with confidence, knowledge and insight into what works well for women in your industry specifically (plus, armed with any information on company, team and your manager, specifically).

Record yourself in the practice negotiation, if possible, so you can see for yourself how you look and sound. Discount your own bias to put yourself down. Ask for feedback from someone else who can give you an honest opinion (and always take it in stride).

Prepare a detailed list of accomplishments and points you want to get across in the review.

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Now, when you go in for your end-of-year review, you will be armed and ready with the information and the confidence you need to blow your manager away. I'll be rooting for your success, as always!

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Are there other important strategies you’ve used to negotiate effectively as a professional woman? Please share them with the Community in Comments below. We’d love to hear from you!

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"How do you manage through the stress of living in New York, a family, huge student debt, a full-time job, plus writing and the other stuff you do?"

Well, that's a question for the ages. It's mostly been through trial and error, big mistakes, consistent tweaking, finding Moses, having to live through great upheaval, moving 20 times, rebirth, being born with sensitive digestion and high sensitivity. Nothing's been easy, but hard work's paid off.

I haven't let my "circumstances" break me, simply. But also, it's through discipline and patience. Rome wasn't built in a day. Along the way, I've learned a lot about how to maintain my health - both physical and mental - and what is most important to the process.

**Here is the A-Z of what I've done to get to where I am today**:

A) Eat a consistently balanced diet.

Accustom your digestive system to wholesome foods and make it a habit (with variations to keep things interesting). Experiment, but have a solid backbone of a regimen.

Eat a wide variety of foods. Get your vitamins and minerals through food, not supplements.

Keep your portions small by using smaller plates. Make your own food at home to control nutrition and costs.

Focus on maintaining a healthy digestive system. Don't push it to the edge too often or you will end up (permanently) sick or worse.The goal is to limit inflammation and oxidation. Therefore, watch how much spicy and acidic food you eat (and never late at night), how much dairy you consume (the less, the better).

Consumer adequate fiber and B vitamins from whole grains and green vegetables. Make salads often. Eat little or no red meat (poultry is better) and lots of fish (better to freeze before cooking, to kill sea words and other parasites). Eat olive oil and drink red wine periodically. Fruits and veggies.

B) Hydrate throughout the day (but don't drink too much water, either).Sip lukewarm water with honey and lemon several times a day.
Drink water before meals (ideally, 15-30 minutes before) and 30+ minutes after (but never DURING the meal).

C) Move! Walking even twice a day and getting up to stretch every hour does marvels for your health (more than going to the gym before or after work!)

D) Learn to relieve stress safely and effectively, every single day.Here's a good primer on how to do this well.

Take regular breaks. Switch things up (go out after work, meet friends, create new experiences).

Sleep well (7-8 hours a night), most importantly. Block out as much sound and light as you can from your bedroom (use blackout shades, turn off appliances in the background, etc.). Keep all your devices far away from you while you sleep. Pay careful attention to your circadian rhythms and don't mess with them!

Maintain good dental hygiene twice a day - floss, mouthwash, brush thoroughly, use a tongue scraper. When your mouth is inflamed or bleeding, it's often a sign of bigger health problems.

Learn to plan and prepare ahead of important meetings, at work and at home. Prep meals for the next day ahead of time before you sleep. Prepare the clothes and shoes you'll wear, plus whatever else you need in your bag for tomorrow.

Reduce the number of decisions you have to make in the morning (and in general, every day).

Resolve all the conflicts with people that you canbefore going to sleep.
Take vacations!

G) Know that every problem you have or will ever have has been faced by many other people, including family, friends and acquaintances (and people posting online).

Seek out their wisdom and use it. Don't reinvent the wheel. Read Quora. Read forums, interest groups, crowdsource solutions from your networks. Ask for advice - you may even get a job out of it!

H) Turn off and/or put away your devices at set times.Put the smartphone away at dinner and before you sleep. Keep it away from your bedside. Don't check your phone first thing in the morning. Wait at least an hour. Read something interesting (magazine, book) on the pot, instead.

I) Surround yourself with family and friends good people who want you to succeed and be healthy.Distance yourself from negative people and their energy-sucking antics.

J) Value your time above all other resources.Are you doing something that's helping you grow as a person, professional or artist? Are you spending time with people that will help you move along the right path, with your best interest in mind? If not, move on quickly.

Maintain high standards for the things that you consume and produce (what you eat and how you digest, what you hear and how you speak, what you watch and what you show others).

K) Work hard to understand what thoughts/scripts (things you always tell yourself) hold you back and change them.

L) Learn to say no to people and things that waste your time.Repeat often. Now your "Yes" is really worth something to you and others.

M) Break free of allergens making your life miserable. Do an elimination diet (eliminate candidate foods and ingredients that you might be allergic to). Clean the house regularly and your desk at work, too.

N) Set a home cleaning regimen.Get a cleaning lady, if you can't manage on your own. Cleanliness of the house reflects cleanliness of the mind.

O) Set up your finances.

This is the single biggest source of stress and illness for most people. Learn to budget and optimize cash flows and investments effectively. Diversify your sources of income. Read up on personal finance (for example, Ramit Sethi's The Ultimate Guide to Making Money).

Create financial goals and plan out how to reach them. Consult a financial planner. Pay off your highest-percentage debt first. Carefully monitor your credit and improve it in every way you can. Have at least a 6-month cushion in savings that's readily accessibly in emergencies.

Invest in low-fee financial instruments like ETFs and index funds to maximize returns.

Put the minimal amount in your 401(k) to get your employer match, but not a penny more. 401(k) programs are lucrative for employers and the mutual funds that manage the money, but not very much so for you and I.

P) Keep a journal. Keep a pen and notepad by your bedside, at work and in your bag. It's critical to look back and reflect on what you've been through and how you've grown since then.

Q) Write down 10 ideas for something new each day. Make it a habit. Thank James Altucher. And read his stuff every day. Trust me, it's great.

R) Organize all your information in a way that you can find and access it easily at any time.

Always be organizing. Organize your work files, email, notes, music, etc. This reduces stress when you need something right away (and that's several times a day). Take notes in one place (if on a computer, then in a WORD file - one per subject). Otherwise, take notes on a note pad with a pen. Ideally, your notes are easily and quickly searchable (computer is easier). Use Evernote.

T) Use (almost) every minute of your free time for something useful (outside of rest time set aside) to read, write, reflect, learn and plan ahead.It's also perfectly ok to be bored and do nothing, sometimes. It helps calm the nerves and reset. But being bored all the time is a waste. The world is too interesting and needs you too much to do something useful.
Oh yeah, get rid of that TV, while you're at it.

V) Automate and outsource what others can do better, faster and/or cheaper than you to save time. Here's a great resource that can help - Ari Meisel's Less Doing blog.

W) Say thank you as much as you can, especially to family and friends.Express your gratitude in person and in writing. If you believe in G-d, then say thanks for the food you eat, for keeping your organism whole and functioning properly, for good things that happen in your life, for giving you sustenance and all the other blessings you have in life.

Leave no person worse off for having met you - and do your best to leave them better off for it. How can you help? Ask!

Y) Focus. Nothing great in life was ever accomplished without at least some measure of sustained focus. I have ADD as much, if not worse, than the next guy. But when I'm focused and in my element (despite all the insane distractions in life), that's where I'm at my best.

Z) Find your purpose and mission in life and execute on them.The only thing that matters is your performance against your potential, not how you compare against anyone else. NEVER compare yourself to anyone else. You have a unique mission and purpose and nobody else's should matter to you for comparison.

Lastly, know that all is One. Everything in life has a meaning.
Also, keep in mind that each of us came from dust and will go back to dust when finished in this life, which is but a blink in the continuum of the universe.

In light of that. do your best with what you were given in life and the good things will follow.

I wish you only the best of luck in your journey. If I can ever be of help, please do get in touch!

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Are there other methods you've used to achieve sustainable health and wellbeing? Please share them with the Community in Comments below. We’d love to hear from you!

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Like what you see? Visit BlueprintToThrive.com for more great strategies and tips for better health and wealth, plus improved productivity.